TV Guidance Counselor
TV Guidance Counselor Thanksgiving Special
[ora noises] Wait. You have a TV? No. I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. Don't need a TV. ♪ I won't say your name ♪ ♪ 'Cause you know what you want ♪ ♪ I'll never be the singer there now ♪ ♪ No way ♪ ♪ I just wanna say ♪ ♪ 'Cause I can't get a place the way you think ♪ Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. It's a special edition yet again of TV Guide and Counselor. It is Thursday. It is Thanksgiving here in America. I recognize if you're not in America, it is not Thanksgiving. And if you're in Canada, Thanksgiving was the last month. However, I got some good responses from the little Halloween mini episode I did last month. So I thought I would repeat the format again for a Thanksgiving episode. It's just me solo, yet again, it's me and you. That's just us. It's just us. No one knows. No one has to know about it. You might hear my dog Pete if he gets anger in the background and he finishes his ice cream early. But other than that, it's just me giving you some personalized, well, they're not really personalized 'cause I don't actually know who you are. Let's say custom or personalized to me. Recommendations of shows you might wanna watch on Thanksgiving. If you're like me, you dislike football immensely. You may not like your family that much. So you wanna watch something on Thanksgiving. You have the day off, you're full of food. So this will be some suggestions of things you can watch. I'm not gonna say that they are the most obscure shows or stuff you haven't heard of or standing like that. You probably heard of some of these, but I'm just reminding you or I may inform you of something you didn't know about previously, but that's not my intention. These are some of my favorites as I do for all holidays. I have a very exhaustive XL grid of pretty much every single holiday episode or special that exists that I've been able to find. This was literally years in the making. This is what I do with my time. See the amazing things you can do when you don't drink or do drugs. I don't know if that would really keep any kids from doing those things, but I do have this list. So again, if you want the entire list, feel free to email me at Canadaicandry.com or at tvguidenscounselor.com. It's like an eight-page XL grid. I have them for Halloween Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day. I'll be doing these little mini episodes for those as well if people continue to enjoy them. So if you hate them, let me know as well. Maybe I won't do them. Thanksgiving is kind of an interesting holiday. If you're not American, it is an or Canadian, in which case you had Thanksgiving last month. It's sort of a dry run for Christmas. And I apologize for using the term dry run. I have a problem with that generally and I complain about it and I can't believe I just said that because saying dry run implies that there is a wet run. Really, that Christmas is a wet run and that seems wrong to me. But anyway, it's sort of a, let's say, a rehearsal for Christmas except without having to buy any one presents, which is kind of nice. And so I always enjoy that. And some of these episodes, which you'll see reflected in the things that I tend to gravitate towards, are not necessarily traditional family Christmas, thanksgivings rather, but sort of a group of friends, thanksgivings. And growing up at my grandparents' house for better or worse, we ended up sort of being the island of misfit toys for Thanksgiving. There were huge thanksgiving because the kind of people who didn't have anywhere else to go ended up showing up, which caused a wide variety of interesting things to happen. But I sort of do love that aspect of it. And one of my favorite thanksgivings was actually when I was living in the UK, I was going to school over there. And the other American students all went to some awful sports bar in London to celebrate Thanksgiving and watch football with probably the worst examples of American humanity that was in London at the time. Incidentally, I was often embarrassed to be American there as the other representatives of my nation would usually be touristy people, not understanding things very loudly. But I somehow managed to convince the British students that I was sharing a flat with in the flat next door and other European nation students to do Thanksgiving with us. And we had two turkeys. We ate a ton of food. It was a ton of fun. And it kind of meant a lot because Pete, you already, Pete already ate his ice cream, but it kind of meant a lot because it was people who were doing this by choice. We didn't feel obligated to have a Thanksgiving. Are you all right? Excuse me a moment. My dog is choking on the ice cream. He ate you. Okay, bud. You all right? Okay. You want something to chew? Yeah. Let me give you something to do. All right. I'm back. I gave my dog a dried bull penis that he is chewing on and seems happy with that. That is a thing, dog. See that it's not just a thing that I give him a that's a bully stick. That's that's what they are. So anyway, as I was saying, it was one of my best thanksgivings because it was sort of friends and we were all there by choice and there wasn't the weird family obligations and it was a lot of fun. And one of my favorite memories of that is there was one kid American kid who for some reason stayed behind with us. He was a flat dude and he spent the entirety of the day criticizing everything that we did specifically me saying that his mother didn't do things giving that way. It wasn't right. This wasn't cooked right. It wasn't the way his mother did it. And I flipped out on him, as you can imagine, was a very colorful language about a year later I was living back in Boston. I was taking the train into a terrible day job I had. It was a nice job to actually was waiting tables and I saw this kid and he was very happy to see me and it was right after Thanksgiving and he goes, oh, can my mom got really mad at me because everything she did and Thanksgiving I was like, Ken didn't do it that way. So I think this kid was just obnoxious for everybody. One of my other thanksgiving traditions is I have a thanksgiving shirt which is just sort of a middle of the road sort of flannelist shirt that I think my dad got for Christmas in 1993 and never wore that I took out of the package and just wore for 1994 and I've worn it every year since. I have laundered it in between but that is my thanksgiving shirt. I don't know why Phil the need to wear it every year. I am a bit obsessed with ritual as you may imagine if you are a regular listener to the show or not a regular listener and just based on what I just told you. Thanksgiving is all about the Macy's parade for me. I still, I don't watch a lot of modern things but I always watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I absolutely love the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It is sort of a crash course and what is going on in pop culture that year. I get everything packed in to three hours. I get to see awful Broadway renditions. I get to see floats with all the toys and celebrities I've never heard of. It's live so it's always a complete mess. It's usually freezing cold sometimes if you're lucky it's snowing everyone's miserable and they're trying to put on a happy face and it's always entertaining and I collect old broadcast of Macy's Thanksgiving periods. I have about 20 or 30 of them and one of my favorite new traditions is sort of every Sunday after Thanksgiving every year. Rachel and my wife and I have a couple of friends over. We eat a lot of breakfast foods and we watch an old Macy's Thanksgiving parade and just talk about it and enjoy it and it's always fun. One of my favorites is the 1991 where Keisha Knight gets caught on a runaway float which is pretty exciting. Also, I've never seen a Macy's parade past 1979 that didn't have smurfs at some point. That's kind of a fun game you can play. So those are sort of my Thanksgiving traditions and if you want to hear darker tale but an actual Thanksgiving that happened to me in 1994 actually thinking about it the first year I wore my Thanksgiving shirt that's also the year and the day I found my first dead body which is a story I told on the risk podcast which you can find on the best of risk I think of Volume 4 or in their Halloween episode from 2013. If for some reason you want to hear that story some people seem to enjoy it but it is a Thanksgiving tale that I won't go into here. But onto the episode. So I'm going through my list now. I will tell you there are certain shows that just had great thanksgivings every year that you can kind of watch any of the years in their great Roseanne being the big example. They always had great Halloween episodes but their Thanksgiving episodes really excelled as well. And all of those. And then the other show that I would say although they only had two Thanksgiving episodes New Heart is a very Thanksgiving-ish show to me. It's one of my favorites generally and it's very New Englandy and it just feels like every episode takes place around Thanksgiving. So if you want to marathon something, marathon New Heart it just is a good good feeling New Englandy Thanksgiving thing and their two Thanksgiving episodes are fantastic as well. They're definitely recommended. But as a whole I think of Thanksgiving as being very New Englandy sorry southern people and you're deep fried turkey. I'm sure it's fine. I just don't want it on Thanksgiving. I also am a big proponent of the Thanksgiving sandwich. I have those many many times throughout the year. I enjoy eating. Onto the episodes. First of all I want to say one of my favorites and a show that comes up all the time Barney Miller has a great episode called Thanksgiving Story. It's from season four. It's episode nine. It is a Dietrich episode. I always love Dietrich as much as I love fish. Dietrich is fantastic. Highly recommended. Go with that. I also want to recommend to you the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving although not my favorite. It's probably a distant third behind the Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown Christmas. You may just want to watch Great Pumpkin again. It's sort of a thumbnail just watch Great Pumpkin again. Cheers has two great Thanksgiving episodes. The best of which is peep. Hold on a moment. I'm putting peep outside. You want to go outside? Cheers has two great Thanksgiving episodes but I specifically love the one from season five. It's episode nine. It's called Thanksgiving Orphans. It's the food fight episode. If you've seen it before it's very entertaining and it's one of the best examples of that sort of family is what you make it that I was kind of discussing earlier. It's a fantastic episode. I highly highly recommend it. Also Designing Women. Another one of my favorite shows. Another CBS Monday Night Staple. There's one called Perky's Visit from season one episode seven. Very good episode as always and there's a special. This one might be harder to find. Now most of these you can find on Hulu, on Netflix, on Amazon, sometimes YouTube. This one might be a YouTube. I haven't looked yet. But if it is on YouTube, I will post a link on tvguidescounselor.com. I'll try to put as much of these in one place as possible if you want to do a marathon or do a playlist or anything like that. But it's an episode of Dolly. And this was Dolly Parton's late 80s, 1988 actually, ABC Variety Show. And she did a Thanksgiving episode called the Tennessee Mountain Thanksgiving. It's episode seven. It is fantastic. I mean Dolly, I could watch Dolly Parton do anything but her holiday specials are always great. This one, she goes back to her high school. There's sort of, you see people she actually went to high school with. They interview her. It's nuts. It's just great. If you're going to watch one thing, watch Dolly's Tennessee Mountain Thanksgiving and you will enjoy it very, very much. I will also say Dr. Katz, great Thanksgiving episode. Form a guest to the show Jonathan Katz. It's from season five, great episode. The Drew Carey Show also has three great Thanksgiving episodes. I highly recommend those. Drew Carey was a show that I think their holiday episodes were very underrated. Had a lot of great Christmas episodes, a lot of great Halloween episodes. Any of their Thanksgiving episodes are pretty enjoyable. I would also recommend The Facts of Life for Union, a made-for-TV movie from 2001, takes place at Thanksgiving. I know that Thanksgiving is a time that a lot of people sort of come home, meet kids they went to high school with, attempt to make out with a girl they liked in high school on that Wednesday night when people are drunk, that doesn't quite happen in The Facts of Life for Union movie, but it is a fun, interesting thing to see if you're a fan as I am. The box that's coming out in January. It don't know if The Facts of Life for Union will be on there, but if you want to watch a Facts of Life movie, there you go. Family ties in season two had a Thanksgiving episode called No Nukes is Good Nukes, where Elise and Steven actually get arrested for protesting nuclear war. This episode, for from that season, you should check that out. Full House has one called The Miracle of Thanksgiving, which is a little bit silly, DJ has a breakdown because they can't make the sweet potato pie or dead mother made. It's a very special episode. It's okay. Garfield though, Garfield Thanksgiving, fantastic, Grandma comes in, saves the day, highly recommend it. Now, onto one of my favorites, these are in no real order, they're in alphabetical order essentially, but if I had a top three, this would be in there, it is Kate and Allie Thanksgiving from season three, it is episode eight, it's very, very Allie-centric, it is fantastic. It really manages to sum up a lot of the anxiety of Thanksgiving, the sort of being forced to deal with family, whether you want them to or not. I highly recommend that episode, it's a favorite, and one of my number, this actually may be my number one actually. It's Mad About You, now they have three different Thanksgiving episodes, but the one that I love is from season three, it's episode eight, it's called Jiblitz from Murray, and it is by far, it's the best episode of Mad About You, which is a show that I enjoy, but yeah, it's probably my number one, it's either my number one or number two. It is just a classic farce, it's very funny, it's great if you're watching, you know, maybe one or two, I know I've said this for like five different things, if you're going to watch one Thanksgiving episode, Mad About You, Jiblitz from Murray, really funny episode, really great episode. Also, the new heart ones I was talking about, if you're not going to marathon it, you're just going to watch one or two episodes, don't rain on my parade is from season two, episode six, that is sort of the better of the two Thanksgiving, new heart episodes, the second being Thanksgiving for the memories, very Stephanie-centric episode, former TV Gaddens counselor guest, Julia Duffy, she's very funny in it, that is from season five, episode eight, although the don't rain on my parade so it eats it out a little more, I really, really enjoy that one. I had to go get Pete, he was outside and he was mad at me, he's probably going to bark again at some point, but that's going to happen. There was I, I will sort of un recommend, if you want a terrible Thanksgiving episode, horribly offensive, please check out Say By The Bell, The College Years, a Thanksgiving story, it's from season one, the only season of The College Years, episode 11, this has a wonderful offensive Indian accent done by one mr. Zach Morris, it is offensive and horrific and sadly very enjoyable to watch. And you might not think of Spencer for hire, Thanksgiving, episode seven from season three, season three may be my favorite episode of Spencer. If you know me, you know that I love Spencer for hire, this one captures what Thanksgiving was like for me in the 80s in Boston, it was exactly like this episode, but with slightly less thug murder. Spin City, show that I haven't talked about enough on this show, one of my probably top five shows in the 90s, they had a number of great Thanksgiving episodes, the first being the competition from season one, episode 10, season two had gobbled the wonder turkey saves the day. That's episode 10. There was one called the Thanksgiving show in season four. And then season five is when you had Michael J. Fox leave the series and be replaced by Charlie Sheen. It's not quite as good, but they did everything's giving episode. All of those are very, very fun. However, we get to my favorite. Met about you is a show that I've talked about on here before. This show I sadly haven't discussed enough. This was a very, very short live series called Townies and it started Bill Burr, Ron Livingston, and Jenna Elfman, and Molly Ringwald among others. And it was a great show. It was set in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Dana Gould was involved in it in some capacity. And it was one of the last truly blue collar shows that I can think of. I believe it was on in 1996. It lasted less than 10 episodes. It was not a popular or successful show, but it was very well written and it really captured sort of small town New England, never leaving, not having any money and that sort of thing. And I cannot think of a better episode than the Thanksgiving episode. If you only watch one episode of Townies and you want to get a feel for the show, this is the one to watch. It really hits home for me. It was maybe the most accurate portrayal of how I remember the sort of struggle of Thanksgiving and not having enough money to really put on a big spread, but wanting to sort of do that for your family. And it's just great. It's the most Thanksgiving-ish Thanksgiving episode that I can think of. So highly recommend you watch that. Those are all the sort of individual episodes that I would recommend to you. Again, there's a lot more. I mean, Elf had a Thanksgiving, amazing stories. One is very grim, I enjoy it, but I don't know if I'd recommend it to you. Care bear. I mean, there's Thanksgiving episodes all over the place. If you want the fullest, let me know. And if you're completely stuck and you just want to marathon something, recreate your own Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day Marathon. Get a bunch of episodes and just watch them, the interstitials you can find on the latest box set or on YouTube, Turkey Day Marathons were a staple growing up for me. I love the Comedy Central Turkey Day Marathons as well as the Saturday Night Live Marathons for Christmas. But we can get into that in the Christmas episode. So again, thank you guys so much. I don't want to get too sappy here, but as it is a time to reflect, I do want to thank you, specifically you, for listening to this show. I've only been doing the show eight months. It's my favorite thing that I've ever done, 10 years into stand-up. I wish I did this so much earlier. Thanks to Shawn Sullivan for putting the fire under me to do this show. I have managed to reach people all over the world. The downloads I see are crazy. Thank you guys for listening. I know there are people who've listened to every single episode, which means that there are people who've listened to me talk for 48 hours or more. That's two full days of your life. Thank you for doing that. That's insane. But I appreciate it. And I love all the emails you guys send me. And the fact that this connects with you at all means a lot to me. I won't get too sappy about it. I'll save that for the New Year's episode, where I may shed some tears. But yeah, thanks for listening. I mean, I couldn't do it without you guys. And it would just be weird if I was just releasing this and no one listened. And I've been able to talk to some of my friends and get to know them better. People have known for years. I've gotten to meet some of my heroes. I've gotten to befriend some people that I love watching, watching on television growing up. And it just amazes me. So, if I'm being thankful, that that's what I'm thankful for this year. And I thank you. So please eat some turkey. Watch the Macy's Parade if you haven't already. You should have DVR'd it. But you can probably watch it online. I also do tend to live tweet it, which is something that I never do for anything. But I probably do live tweet the Macy's Parade. So if you haven't watched it yet and it's on now, that's what I'm probably doing. So @canestwread is my Twitter. And I will give you detailed opinions on everything going on in the Macy's Parade, which I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. So, once again, happy Thanksgiving to you. If you're not American or not in America, eat some turkey, join us in our obesity. And Wednesday, brand new episode, TV guidance counselor, thank you guys so much. [MUSIC]